Fear Factor
by Miraichaos
Summary: Arashiyama sees his worst fear come to life


A/N: My new victim of torture, Jun Arashiyama! Actually, I didn't know if I should cry or slap myself in the face while writing this, or if I should go take a nap. I have exams this week and I'm running on zero sleep, and I needed a break from studying. Anyway, sorry for any OOCness, errors, typos and just overall crappy writing. I hope everyone enjoys the story, and I'll see about starting up another multi-chapter over the summer break, but I make no promises.

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"Fuku? Saho? Where are you?" Arashiyama asked as his head swiveled, eyes scanning his endless surroundings for signs of his siblings. The crowd around him was full of unfamiliar faces, and the tall buildings and cars futher obstructed his vision.

Arashiyama began to panic. His siblings had been right next to him just a second ago, so they couldn't have gotten far.

"Fuku! Saho!" Arashiyama began to shout the names of the two as he continued to look around, but his efforts were fruitless. Fuku and Saho were nowhere to be seen.

Just then, the crowd that had previously parted around Arashiyama closed in on him. It was suffocating, being smashed between all those different people. Arashiyama found himself unable to move how he wanted anymore, the sea of people pulling him down the street, possibly away from his siblings.

While Arashiyama was usually a nice, polite guy who didn't get pushy in crowds during his days off, his patience disappeared during emergencies. The teen began swimming through the crowd, pushing people aside and squeezing past them as he attempted to escape. The line of people hadn't been too thick earlier, so logically it wouldn't take him too long to find freedom. However, no matter how long Arashiyama pushed his way through the throng of people in the direction that he knew led to the sidewalk, he never broke free. The sea of people was endless, and it had swallowed him whole.

Suddenly, a weight slammed into Arashiyama and knocked him to the ground, smacking him down hard on the pavement. His head was spared when he caught himself, hands scraping painfully on the concrete beneath him, and he slowly opened his eyes as he moved to get to his feet.

When his eyes and mind connected, he saw that he was in the street, all alone. It was as if the large crowd he had just been stuck in had suddenly disappeared in an instant, the noise and uncomfortable warmth gone without a trace.

'Fuku! Saho!' The memory of what he had been doing before the crowd disappeared came back to Arashiyama's mind, interrupting his confused stupor, and the teen instantly scanned the streets around him, but found no sign of his missing siblings.

"Fuku? Saho!" he called for what felt like the billionth time.

"Jun!"

Arashiyama spun in circles, searching for the owner of the familiar voice that had called his name.

"Saho?" he shouted, searching for the younger teen. However, when he finally spotted her, he almost wished he hadn't.

"Jun! Help!"

Arashiyama stared with wide eyes at his two younger siblings, who were in the clutches of Marmods. The gray, beetle-like Trion Soldiers has their blades out for Arashiyama to see, the glowing Trion spades pointed threateningly at the chests of the dark haired twins who were at their mercy. Fuku and Saho both looked terrified, tears streaming down their faces as they looked at their brother pleadingly.

Without hesitation, Arashiyama bolted toward his siblings, hands shooting to his pockets and fumbling around in them as he searched for his Trigger. It wasn't there. Arashiyama stumbled at the realization, but didn't slow down. He wasn't going to let those Marmods hurt his siblings, even if it cost him his life.

Arashiyama ran and ran, not stopping even when his breaths turned to sharp, quick pants. His lungs felt like they would burst and his legs ached from the acidic burn in his muscles, but he kept running. However, to Arashiyama's confusion and horror, he wasn't getting any closer to his siblings and the Neighbors.

"Fuku! Saho!" Arashiyama shouted again, the desperation and fear as clear as water in his voice. He pushed off the ground with his toes harder and harder with each step in attempts to at least get closer. Unfortunately, he still didn't seem to even be moving.

"Jun! Help! Ju-" the two younger Arashiyama children yelled, though their shouts were abruptly cut off as the lethal Marmod blades sliced through their chests, silencing the two in an instant. Arashiyama froze, legs faltering, and his eyes widened impossibly more as his breaths stopped. He watched as the blades withdrew from his siblings' chests, dropping the lifeless bodies of his little brother and sister to the cold, hard, unforgiving ground.

"H-h-how..." Arashiyama whispered, his voice barely audible from shock as his legs went weak before totally giving out, sending him to his knees on the concrete. His hands went up to bury themselves in his dark hair, grasping at the thick locks as his head hung, watery eyes locking on the pavement below him, which had turned a sickening shade of red.

"Jun." Said teen's head flew up at the sound of his sister's voice. Saho was pushing herself up off the ground, her dark hair covering her face. As her head rose, her hair parted and dropped away from her face so that Jun could see her expression. She sat on her side, held up by her arms like she was trying to pose like a mermaid, though her shaky arms said otherwise. It gave Arashiyama a grossly perfect view of the gaping wound in her chest. Tears streamed down the girl's face from sad, betrayed eyes, and her lips were turned down in a frown.

"Saho?" Arashiyama asked hopefully, his spirits raising slightly. Maybe Saho wasn't dead?

"Why didn't you save us? Why did you let us die?" Saho asked, her voice wavering. Arashiyama stiffened again, his heart turning to ice cold lead, which dropped into his gut and made him feel like he was going to vomit.

"You're supposed to protect us, Jun. You swore that you would." Arashiyama's eyes darted to the left of Saho to see Fuku sitting on his legs, sharing the same expression as his sister.

"You're supposed to save us, Jun. Do you not care about us? Do you not love us, Jun?" the two said, their in-sync voices blending together in painful harmony, sending steel daggers of guilt through Jun's heart. His nausea grew stronger with each word, like someone was punching him extra hard in the gut.

"I wanted to save you! I do care! I couldn't... I don't know... I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Arashiyama said, his voice breathy as a fresh wave of hot tears slipped out of his burning eyes and trailed down to his lips, leaving behind a salty sting. His head dropped again, his eyes returning their focus to the ground beneath him once more, causing Jun to squeeze his eyes shut in an attempt to keep the sight around him from reaching his brain, though it was already there and refused to leave, like a stubborn parasite. This couldn't be real, it couldn't be. Jun couldn't live knowing Fuku and Saho were dead, all because he hadn't been able to save them.

Arashiyama didn't have any time to think straight as violent sobs wracked his body, bending him and breaking him, crushing every fiber of his being with grief. He didn't hear the screech of the Marmods as they moved in on him. In fact, he didn't notice them until the Trion blades pierced his chest, causing him to stiffen and open his eyes in shock. He looked down at the blades in his chest dumbly, watching as the same crimson the painted the world around him seeped out from the wound. He felt no pain, and he wasn't sure if it was even possible for him to feel anything at all any more. His will to live had vanished in seconds, along with the lives of his younger siblings.

Arashiyama's body went slack on the blades, which withdrew from his chest, letting him fall sideways onto the ground with a dull 'thud'. His vision faded, but he couldn't even bring himself to be afraid of the oblivion that awaited him.

-000-

Arashiyama had walked into the squad room that morning looking almost asleep on his feet, not even in his Trion body. None of the other Arashiyama squad members were surprised when the captain sat down at his desk, clicked the power button on his computer, then passed out with his head resting on his folded arms, which weighed heavily on the desk in front of the computer keyboard.

"Is Arashiyama-san feeling okay? He doesn't look so good," Haruka commented from where she sat at her desk, a small frown looking completely alien on her usually-happy face as her eyes scanned over the older teen. Kitora nodded in agreement.

Arashiyama's usually-neat hair was disheveled, and it didn't even look like it had been combed at all since the previous day. There were dark shadows under his closed eyes, and his feet had been dragging when he walked in.

"He's just tired. This morning at about 3am he texted me and said that his younger siblings both got sick last night. He wasn't sure that he'd even get here today, but I guess his parents were able to get off work and are handling his siblings," Tokieda informed, sipping some apple juice from a can he'd bought before work that day.

The others in the room nodded, taking a look at their captain. He was too responsible, kind and caring for his own good.

"We should let him get some sleep then. He won't get any work done if he's dead tired," Kitora decided, crossing the room to where her captain was slouched over his desk. She reached over Arahiyama's head to poke the power button on the young man's computer, shutting it off to conserve power before returning to her own desk to do her work. Satori, who was usually quite rowdy, silently sat at his desk to do his work, gathering enough self-control to give Arahiyama some quiet.

The squad worked for the next ten minutes, quietly typing away like usual, the only noise in the room being the clacking of the keyboards and the quiet inhale and exhale that came from the sleeping captain.

It was shortly after those quiet ten minutes that something changed. Arashiyama's breaths grew deeper and faster, then his eyebrows began to inch together. His fingers started twitching, though the tremors quickly spread until his entire body was shivering as if he was in a freezer. His team mates looked at him with concern, rising slowly out of their seats just before Arashiyama suddenly screamed something unintelligible and jolted in his seat, falling out of his chair and smacking into the ground, though he didn't regain consciousness. Instead, he twitched on the floor, his hands clenching and unclenching as his arms reached for something unknown. His feet twitched as if he was trying to move, and the others could faintly hear him mumbling about Fuku and Saho.

Satori, Kitora, Haruka and Tokieda knelt around their captain, who turned on his side and curled in on himself. Tears leaked out of his eyes and his body shook even more than it had been before as he began to sob. His quaking hands went to his hair, grabbing fistfuls of the dark locks and twisting it in a way that had to be painful.

Arashiyama stayed like that for at least a minute as he continued mumbling. The others could make out 'Fuku' and 'Saho' and 'I'm sorry' from their captain's barely audible voice.

Suddenly, out of the blue, Arashiyama stiffened. He stopped breathing and his muscles tensed as if he had been petrified. However, he went completely slack soon after, his hands falling from his hair as the tension left his body and his breaths returned to a slow, steady exchange.

"What just happened?" Haruka asked breathily, her eyes wide. She got no response. Everyone was just as confused as she was as they stared dumbly at their motionless captain.

"Is that...blood?" Kitora asked, breaking the silence that had settled over the room as her hand moved to brush away the hair that was plastered to Arashiyama's forehead with sweat. Sure enough, there was a small cut on the left side of Arashiyama's forehead that was leaking small droplets of blood into his hair, likely something the teen had earned when he crashed to the floor.

"Ngh."

The small groan caught the attention of Kitora, Haruka, Satori and Tokieda, who looked back at their captain's face. Slowly, Arashiyama blinked his eyes open, the tired, dead-looking, leaf green orbs appearing from behind heavy eyelids and long, dark eyelashes.

"Arashiyama-san?" Haruka called softly. Arashiyama's eyes flicked towards the operator, but he had no reaction. Instead, he glanced around at the others with a small bit of confusion on his tired face, almost completely out of it, as if he wasn't actually conscious.

"Arashiyama-san, are you alright?" Tokieda asked, his voice mostly montone like usual, but this time tinged with slight concern. It took a few seconds, but recognition soon fluttered across Arashiyama's face as the teen's eyes filled with just a little life.

"Tokieda..." Arashiyama said, though his voice was a bit hesitant. He stared at the teen with the bowl-cut-like hair for a moment before his eyes widened significantly and he bolted upright. Arashiyama's hand flew to his head and cradled it as he winced at the pain that blossomed in his skull from the sudden motion.

"Arashiyama-san?" Kitora questioned, a bit confused.

"Kitora? Oh, uh, did I fall asleep? S-sorry, I was up late last night taking care of my siblings," Arashiyama said with a forced chuckle as he regained his usual composure. There was a smile on his face, but his team mates easily saw through it's fake cheer.

"Arashiyama-san, are you sure you're feeling okay? You fell out of your chair, and you were thrashing and mumbling in your sleep. You even screamed something at one point, and you stopped breathing," Tokieda pointed out. Arashiyama instantly paled as the memories of his horrifying nightmare returned. Fuku. Saho. Neighbors. Death.

"Uh, yeah, I just had a bad dream," Arashiyama dismissed. "How long was I out?" he asked, rubbing at his eyes to get out the bleariness and drying tears.

"Before you started freaking out, about ten minutes. After that, you were all worked up for just a few more," Haruka informed, a worried look on her face. Arashiyama nodded, then went to get to his feet.

"I should get my report typed up," he said as he stood, trying to dismiss the issue, though he immediately lost his balance and fell on Satori, who was barely able to keep them upright.

"Woah! Arashiyama-san, maybe you should sit down, or get some more sleep," Satori recommended, his stupidity and sarcasm gone for the moment as he helped Arashiyama back down to the floor.

"You definitely need more sleep," Tokieda agreed. Arashiyama was ready to disagree and argue that he really was fine, but he stopped when he saw Kitora looking at him, a stern expression on her face as she held a first-aid kit in her hands.

"You won't do good work when you're tired. Fix your head, then get some sleep," she said, eyeing the small bead of blood slipping towards Arashiyama's eye. The captain glanced at the others in the room, who all seemed to agree with Kitora.

"Alright, but only for a little bit. I really do need to finish those reports," Arashiyama relented with a sigh, though Haruka shook her head.

"Actually, I got an email from Tachikawa-san. He wanted me to tell you guys that 'An annoying Power-Elite fairy told me that Arashiyama would have a hard day today'. Apparently, Tachikawa-san asked Shinoda-san to give us an extra day for reports per Jin-san's request, and we got the day off," the operator said, quoting the older agent in her speech. Arashiyama smiled.

"I'll have to thank Jin later," he decided, before wincing when disinfectant spray suddenly invaded the cut on his forehead, eating away at the bacteria in his wound. Kitora frowned and used her free hand to move Arashiyama's hair out of the way so she could spray more disinfectant on the small injury. Behind her, Haruka picked up a small bandage, which she swapped for the disinfectant Kitora had so that the younger girl could finish up.

"Thank you, Kitora, Ayatsuji," Arashiyama said once Kitora finished. The younger of the two girls just gave him a disapproving scowl, while Haruka gave a small smile from where she was putting away the first-aid kit.

"You better sleep before Kitora knocks you out herself, Arashiyama-san," Tokieda warned from his desk. Arashiyama chuckled, despite knowing that Tokieda's suggestion was a real possibility. The captain got to his feet and made sure he was steady before crossing the room to where the couch was, and he laid down on it quietly so that he wouldn't disturb his his team mates' work. Just a few minutes later, he was out cold, and the shakiness that had overtaken Kitora's hands when Arashiyama fell out of his chair screaming finally disappeared.

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A/N: Quick story time! Arashiyama's outward reaction to his nightmare (what his squad sees when he's asleep) may seem exaggerated, but I actually got the idea from my cat, who twitches in her sleep. That, combined with Arashiyama losing Fuku and Saho, which I think is probably his worst fear, somehow turned into a story. Don't ask me how, it just happens :/


End file.
